Two of India’s English-language news majors are slugging it out in a battle for the small but influential English-language news market. Their most powerful current weapon is dual frequencies on pay-TV platforms. But the cost is high, and there’s some doubt over how long they can keep it up.

Traditional media’s influence in four Asian markets – Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan – has not waned as a result of social media, delegates at Deutsche Welle’s (DW) Global Media Forum (22-24 June 2015) in Bonn were told.

Ferdinand Habsburg’s Da Vinci Media has tied up with Indian TV veterans Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur’s digital platform, The Quint, to launch a joint venture edutainment television channel for India.

Nippon TV’s ​new ​live-action ​drama series,​ Death Note​,​ sets a new distribution record for the Japanese broadcaster in July, broadcasting/streaming into 120 countries/regions within a week of the domestic airdate. Nippon TV said this was record distribution for its dramas.

Jawhar Sircar has been a bureaucrat all his life. But the 63-year-old chief executive officer of Prasar Bharati Corporation, India’s state-controlled TV and radio broadcaster, believes “the bureaucracy is obsessed with increasing their numbers like rabbits and scrawling illegible notes”.

The Thai version of talent show Sing Your Face Off breaks the ceiling on the number of celebrity participants, with a line-up of six famous Thai faces – Es Kantapong, Mac Verakhanit, Eaky Ekachai, Tubtim Anyarin, Grace Glanklaw and Bifern Pudsakorn.